Cracks in political unity appear, but Higgs holds firm on temporary foreign worker ban

Two provincial party leaders are now distancing themselves from a ban on temporary foreign workers that Premier Blaine Higgs claimed they had endorsed.

Two provincial party leaders are now distancing themselves from a ban on temporary foreign workers that Premier Blaine Higgs claimed they had endorsed.

Liberal Leader Kevin Vickers said in a statement that a special all-party cabinet committee, which includes him and the leaders of other parties in the legislature, wasn't given the full picture on the ban.

And Green Leader David Coon called for the province to allow exemptions to the ban on temporary foreign workers, saying the decision was “rushed” because of the imminent arrival of a planeload of workers.

Asked Thursday if he was considering exemptions, Higgs said the province was working with employers to identify potential hires among “the many people who are currently available within the province.”

Premier Blaine Higgs responds to a question on whether he would make any exemptions for farming or fish processing after those sectors criticized his decision to close borders to foreign workers. 1:12

The premier claimed earlier this week that the all-party committee, which includes him, key cabinet ministers, Vickers, Coon and People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin, had agreed on “a path forward” to limit temporary foreign workers.

But Coon cast doubt on that Thursday.

“Depends on what you call consensus, I guess,” he told reporters. “If there is general consensus, it seems that decisions are made. Unanimity is not part of the decision-making process.”

Coon chose his words carefully because he and other party leaders took an oath of confidentiality when they agreed in mid-March to sit on the committee. At one point he assured reporters that “I'm not trying to evade your question.”

But he said he made “various suggestions” to the all-party committee to deal with temporary foreign workers, who Higgs said presented a risk of bringing COVID-19 cases into the province.

Calls for the House to sit

Two opposition MLAs who aren't part of the committee say the decision and the secrecy surrounding the committee show that the legislature needs to resume work soon.

“We want to be collaborative,” said Caraquet Liberal MLA Isabelle Thériault, but “there's a fine line because we're an opposition and we're questioning the government. I think we will maybe have to sit in the near future to have debates and ask questions.”

Green MLA Kevin Arseneau said as an individual MLA, “I kind of feel like democracy has been on hold.”

He said the COVID-19 crisis has reached the point “where some decisions … are going to become ideological, so we need opposition to make sure everyone's held to account [with] many points of view.”

Vickers was not available for interviews Thursday but issued a statement calling for the legislature to sit “as soon as possible.”

Coon told reporters the four party house leaders were to meet Thursday afternoon to discuss a possible date for sittings to resume. He said the all-party committee is no longer enough to ensure transparent decision-making.

Higgs said the legislative process will have to start up, but he also wants the parties to continue working together and not “resort back to the political days of the past.” 

He attributed the comments from Vickers and Coon to “pressure” they are getting from within their caucuses and described that as traditional partisan politics that get in the way of solutions.

He also said New Brunswick's encouraging COVID-19 case numbers show the all-party approach is working.

‘A sense of urgency'

Coon said members of the committee were told that a planeload of foreign workers would soon be en route to the province and “there was a sense of urgency to make a decision around that.”

Higgs confirmed that was referring to a flight that was to pick up 175 workers in Mexico on Tuesday night and fly them to Halifax overnight. Some workers were bound for seafood processing plants in Nova Scotia and others were set to come to New Brunswick.

“Literally people were going to be boarding planes very, very, very shortly heading to New Brunswick,” Coon said. “From a health perspective, there were understandable concerns about a significant number of people all coming in at once.” 

Higgs said it's true the decision was hurried, but he said given outbreaks in meat processing plants in Canada and in Singapore due to foreign workers, a quick decision was justified.

“We can stop and we can think about it … or we can react and [then] find a way to mitigate the issues for businesses around the province,” Higgs said.

One of the processing plants that was going to employ the workers, Downeast Cape Bald Packers, said this week they were already well prepared to respect all COVID-19 health protocols.

Coon said at the time of the meeting he had no information on the status of other temporary foreign workers and didn't know whether farms that had been approved to hire them had them in place. That information “would have been helpful,” he said. 

Vickers said in his statement the condemnation of the decision from the farming and fishing sectors “did not reflect what we were told on Monday night in terms of the consultation that was done with the industry and their labour-market needs.”

He said he made that point at a new meeting of the all-party committee Wednesday night. But the statement didn't say what reaction he got or whether the party is calling for a reversal of the ban or for exemptions.

Tapping into local labour

Meanwhile, debate continued Thursday on whether it's realistic, as Higgs has suggested, that unemployed New Brunswickers and students on summer break can fill some of the 600 job vacancies that were to be filled by foreign workers. 

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Higgs said the province will launch a website next week aimed at matching potential workers with those vacancies.

But Thériault agreed with industry officials who said this week students will lack the training to step into those positions. “You don't become a farmer or a fish or seafood processor overnight.” 

She said laid-off workers who go to work in processing plants or on farms could quit to return to their regular jobs once the economy begins to restart in the coming weeks. 

“Those people are going to say, ‘Thank you for the experience, but I'm going back to my work,'” she said. “That puts the fish plants and the farmers in the same position they're in right now: where are they going to find those people?”

Coon repeated his view that the province should subsidize farm salaries by $4 per hour to encourage more of them to fill the shortage. Higgs said Thursday he would look at that as part of a broader plan to grow the farming sector to increase food security.

Looking for federal support

The federal Conservatives, meanwhile, are calling on Ottawa to cover the full wages of any students who take jobs on farms this summer to fill labour shortages.

On Wednesday the Conservatives insisted that legislation setting up a new fund for students who lose summer work because of COVID-19 include a requirement that they “attest” to searching for work before they get the money.

The Conservatives also persuaded MPs to adopt a motion calling for the government to provide incentives to students who take farm or fisheries jobs.

Conservative MP Dan Albas said the government should match the $263 million in the existing summer job program to fully subsidize students who work in agriculture and fisheries.

“We believe there are lots of opportunities in our food supply chain where students can operate,” he said. “We need to have an all-hands-on-deck approach.” 

But Albas refused to say whether Higgs was right to impose an across-the-board ban on temporary foreign workers.

Even if the Conservative proposals were adopted, Thériault said, it was doubtful that enough students would be able to fill all the positions.

“We can give it a try, but we need experienced people,” she said.

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